


give up the ghost

by hanthelibrarian



Series: Promptober 2020 [4]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Canon Divergent, Gen, Happy Ending, Violence (mentioned), not sure how to tag this, reference to canon suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26826445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanthelibrarian/pseuds/hanthelibrarian
Summary: Stan looked down at the body that was once his, watching as Patty ran from the bathroom to find towels and grab her cellphone. It’s too late, babylove, he wanted to say but she couldn’t hear him now. He wished she didn’t have to be the one to find him, to see him like this, but there was no other way. That phone call had awoken something in him that he still couldn’t shake, even now that he was dead. Fear.
Relationships: Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Series: Promptober 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952227
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	give up the ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Promptober Day Four: Ghost

Stan looked down at the body that was once his, watching as Patty ran from the bathroom to find towels and grab her cellphone.  _ It’s too late, babylove _ , he wanted to say but she couldn’t hear him now. He wished she didn’t have to be the one to find him, to see him like this, but there was no other way. That phone call had awoken something in him that he still couldn’t shake, even now that he was dead.  _ Fear. _

Now a ghost, Stan could go anywhere he wanted; all he had to do was think of the place and  _ bam!  _ He’s there. So of course he used this newfound power to go back to Derry. He couldn’t make it in life but in death, he’d stay by his friends’ sides until they either killed that monster or joined him on this side of the veil. Leaving Patty, alone and scared back in Atlanta, hurt more than he had ever thought it could but Derry was calling. 

_ Come home. _

Stan couldn’t stop Bowers from attacking Eddie, couldn’t stop him from attacking Mike. Hell, Stan couldn’t do shit now that he was dead and isn’t that what he wanted? To take himself off the board so the others would have a better chance of beating IT? But it was so frustrating, terrifying even, to watch his friends get hurt, nearly get killed while he had to sit back and watch. One time, though, one time he had been able to do something. 

Eddie had saved Richie from the Deadlights, called upon that bravery that had been hidden deep down inside. Back turned to IT, he had held Richie like he was made of glass, like he could break at any moment, begging for him to wake up. As Richie came to, Stan saw the monster’s tentacle pull back, preparing to strike, and he moved. He slammed his ghostly body into Eddie and Richie, sent them sprawling onto the rocky ground. Instead of Eddie’s body, the tentacle stabbed through Stan’s misty form and he felt it, felt it wriggling inside of him, trying to pull back. 

“No.” Stan gripped the tentacle with newfound strength and pulled it further through his gaping torso, trapping it as he walked closer to the now human-sized clown. “No more. You’re done.”

The clown stared at him, eyes wide with something Stan recognized from that summer when they had beat IT back into its hole: fear. 

The tentacle shriveled and collapsed into a pile of ash as Stan walked closer, the others now seeing him and walking with him, hands joined. 

“You’re done. We’re no longer scared of you,” Stan said as the seven of them stepped closer and closer. The clown shrank with each step they took and Stan began to feel a weight return to his chest, felt the chill of the cavern. Soon they were standing over the clown, now the size of a small child, IT’s head enlarged and deflated. 

“Goodbye, Pennywise.” Bill’s voice cut through the quiet, no stutter to be heard. He reached down and plunged his hand into the wet, weak, and wilting body, gripping and twisting until he wrenched a shakily beating heart from inside. “You never really were anything more than a clown.”

The seven of them laid their hands on the heart and squeezed, not stopping until all that was left was ashes, floating through the air onto the ground. The mangled body of the clown faded away, melded with the rock beneath it, and they were free. 

The cavern began to crumble then and together they climbed up from its depths, crawled through the rubble of the Neibolt House, and collapsed onto the street where they watched the house crumble to dust. 

After all this, Stan rose to return to Patty, certain that his ghostly presence was tied to the clown’s lifeforce and he wanted to see her just one more time before he moved on for good. But he couldn’t. He tried and tried to focus on her, to focus on their house, but nothing happened. And then a turtle crept by, one eye lazily gazing up at him as it passed. 

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Stanley Uris.” 


End file.
